User:Jacobdenney

Jacob Denney (1999-Present)
I was born on August 12th, 1999 in Seattle, Washington. Later, I moved to Poulsbo, Washington in November of that year. I began to enjoy watching sports, and began playing baseball at the age of four, and I later moved onto Poulsbo Middle School. At the middle school level, I decided to play football along with baseball, and maintained a 3.95 GPA in middle school. When I was 12, I went to Cooperstown, New York, home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and played in a tournament there and later got inducted into the Youth Baseball Hall of Fame. During high school, I played baseball and tennis, and lettered all four years in both sports. I made it to the state playoffs 3 out of 4 years in tennis and all four years on the baseball team. With my spare time at Olympic College I play for the Olympic College baseball team and likes to go fishing with my friends.

The things that interest me about Wikipedia are learning about the processes involved in creating and maintain a substantial Wikipedia page and the work involved, including the research. Also, I am interested in how much work is actually involved in being awarded a Bronze star and being on the Featured Site. If I were to stay on the page for a longer, I would be able to see himself writing mostly on the sports pages and specifically the sports and football pages. Since I have been raised in the Pacific Northwest and lived here my entire life, I would talk about the Seattle sports teams ( Seattle Mariners, Seattle Seahawks, Seattle Sounders). I would talk about the history of the sports, and the individual players and staff involved in each sport.

Article Critique
Since I was young I have been following, playing, and watching baseball. Whether it be high school, college or professional, I would try to watch and be involved as much as I could with the sport. I was born in Washington, so my favorite team and team I grew up watching was the Seattle Mariners. Every year on my birthday my parents would get me tickets to go to the game, since my birthday is in the peak of baseball season. In August, every team is trying to make that one last push to be able to get into the playoffs, something the Mariners haven't been able to do since the early 2000's. Due to this interest, I decided to visit the Seattle Mariners wikipedia page and do my Article Critique on it. I visited the Seattle Mariners page on Wikipedia, and found three aspects worth commentating on: the left handed pitcher for the Seattle Mariners, James Paxton, the culture within the Seattle Mariners, and the Maple Grove, a new section at Safeco Field that is dedicated to James Paxton and every start James Paxton has at home.

James Paxton started the 2017 season with a 0.00 ERA over his first 3 starts, earning him the AL Player of the Week award for the first week of the season. He ended the season with a 12-5 record, with a career best 2.98 ERA and 156 strikeouts in 136 innings. His season was cut short with two trips to the Disabled List, which only allowed him to appear in 24 games this season. There were no references to Paxton on the Mariners site, even though he carried the team for a majority of the season. He was unanimously voted the best pitcher on the team by the Mariners front office, and the fans thought so as well.

The Mariners try their best to get the fans involved with the games as much as they can, whether its by putting interactive games on the big screen in Right-Center Field, or doing giveaways in between innings. One that has been popular even across the MLB is the Kings Court. When Felix Hernandez is scheduled to pitch at Safeco Field, fans that sit in specific sections get a yellow t-shirt and a yellow sign with a navy blue "K" on it. When Hernandez gets into a two strike count, fans in these sections rise to their feet, hold up their "K" cards, and chant "K!" repeatedly, referring to both King Felix, Felix Hernandez's nickname he earned after winning the 2010 Cy Young Award, earned by the best pitcher in both league, and "K", referring to the baseball sign for a strikeout when recorded in the scorebook. When Felix Hernandez began to stand out in the pitching rotation he got his own cheering section, now that Paxton is beginning to become the pitcher the Mariners drafted him to be, they decided to give him his own section as well.

Once two fans decided to travel down to Safeco Field in early June to watch Paxton pitch against the Toronto Blue Jays, they decided they needed a way to heckle the fans from up North. Daniel Carroll and Megan Shear decided to use Paxton's Canadian roots to their advantage, as Paxton was born and raised in Ladner, British Columbia. They used the idea of Kings Court to create their own "section" at Safeco Field, and decided to name it "Maple Grove". Paxton, whose nickname is "big maple", due to his Canadian roots and large maple leaf tattoo on his right bicep, was very supportive of the idea, and even eventually invited the creators of the section down onto the field before a game. The maple grove used signs similar to the Kings Court "K", but instead but a Canadian twist to it. They decided the phrase should be "eh", to poke fun at the many Toronto Fans, and to support Paxton and his home Country. The section lasted the entire season, and the fans that began this trend grew in members, and Carroll said "As long as it’s fun, we’ll still do it.”

These aspects I added I believe were crucial to the 2017 season and how the Mariners fans saw the 2017 season, and should not be left out of the page. The page had not been updated since 2014, and the culture of the team, the stadium, and the fans has changed since then. The fans participate in different activities, have different favorite players, and come from various ways of life. One of the newest and most popular trends found especially this season, was rooting on the newest prodigy to the team, James Paxton. Maple Grove helped grow support towards the Left Handed Phenom, and was crucial to the Mariners and the Mariners culture this season.